Winter 2013

Lower Division Courses

COM 1. MAJOR BOOKS OF WESTERN CULTURE: THE ANCIENT WORLD (4 Units)

Sec. 01.  MW 10:00-11:50A, 105 Olson - CRN 47558
Sec. 02.  TR 12:10-2:00P, 101 Wellman - CRN 47559
Sec. 03.  TR 2:10-4:00P, 127 Wellman - CRN 47560

Course Description: An introduction, through class discussion and frequent written assignments, to some of the great books of western civilization from The Epic of Gilgamesh to St. Augustine's The Confessions. This course may be counted toward satisfaction of the English Composition Requirement in all three undergraduate colleges. Limited to 25 students per section; pre-enrollment is strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by occasional lectures. Students write papers and take a final examination.

Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum and Wrt
GE Credits (New): ArtHum, Wrt, and World Cultures.
(Note: This course cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

Readings (vary from section to section):
The New Oxford Annotated Bible; Homer, The Odyssey; Virgil, The Aeneid; Plato, The SymposiumThe Epic of Gilgamesh;
St. Augustine of Hippo, The Confessions; Sophocles, Antigone; Salvatore Alloso, A Short Handbook for Writing Essays about Literature.


COM 2. MAJOR BOOKS OF WESTERN CULTURE: From THE MIDDLES AGES to THE ENLIGHTENMENT (4 Units)

Sec. 01.  TR 8:00-9:50A, 261 Olson - 47561
Sec. 02.  TR 10:00-11:50A, 261 Olson - 47562
Sec. 03.  MW 12:10-2:00P, 125 Wellman - 47563

Course Description: An introduction to some major works from the medieval period to the "Enlightenment"; close readings and discussion, supplemented with short lectures to provide cultural and generic contexts. May be counted toward satisfaction of the English Composition requirement in all three undergraduate colleges. Limited to 25 students per section; pre-enrollment is strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by occasional lectures. Students write short papers and take a final examination.

Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum and Wrt
GE Credits (New): ArtHum, Wrt, and World Cultures.
(Note: This course cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

Readings (vary from section to section):
Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote; Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method; William Shakespeare, OthelloDante, The Inferno of Dante;
Beowulf; Salvatore Alloso, A Short Handbook for Writing Essays about Literature.


COM 3. MAJOR BOOKS OF WESTERN CULTURE: THE MODERN CRISIS (4 Units)

Sec. 01.  MW 2:10-4:00P, 211 Wellman - CRN 47564
Sec. 02.  MW 4:10-6:00P, 211 Wellman - CRN 47565
Sec. 03.  TR 12:10-2:00P, 244 Olson - CRN 47566
Sec. 04.  TR 10:00-11:50, 244 Olson - CRN 47567

Course Description: An introduction, through class discussion and the writing of short papers, to some of the great books of the modern age, from Goethe's Faust to Beckett's Waiting for Godot. Limited to 25 students per section; pre-enrollment is strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by occasional lectures. Students write short papers and take a final examination.

Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum and Wrt
GE Credits (New): ArtHum, Wrt, and World Cultures.
(Note: This course cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

Readings (vary from section to section):
J.W. von Goethe, Faust (Part One); Sigmund Freud, Civilization and its Discontents; Franz Kafka, The Trial; Beckett, Waiting for Godot;
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment ; Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own; Salvatore Alloso, A Short Handbook for Writing Essays about Literature.


COM 4. MAJOR BOOKS OF THE CONTEMPORARY WORLD (4 Units)

Sec. 01.  TR 10:00-11:50A, 107 Wellman - CRN 47568
Sec. 02.  MW 4:10-6:00P, 127 Wellman - CRN 47569
Sec. 03.  MW 2:10-4:00P, 107 Wellman - CRN 47570
Sec. 04.  TR 10:00-11:50A, 113 Hoagland - CRN 47571

Course Description: Comparative study of selected major Western and non-Western texts composed in the period from 1945 to the present. Limited to 25 students per section; pre-enrollment is strongly advised. Emphasis is on classroom discussion of the readings, supplemented by occasional lectures. Students write short papers and take a final examination.

Prerequisite: Completion of Entry-Level Writing (formerly Subject A) Requirement.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum, Div, and Wrt
GE Credits (New): ArtHum, Wrt, Visual Literacy, and World Cultures.
(Note: This course cannot be used to satisfy a college or university composition requirement and GE writing experience simultaneously).

Readings (vary from section to section):
Junot Diaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao; Jhumpa Lahari, The Namesake; J.M. Coetzee, Foe: A Novel;
Elfriede Jelinek, Women As Lovers; Tayeb Salih, Season of Migration to the North.


COM 5. FAIRY TALES, FABLES, AND PARABLES (4 Units)
Prof. Kari Lokke, kelokke@ucdavis.edu

Lecture: TR 9:00-10:20A, 100 Hunt

Discussion Sections:
Sec. 01.  M 3:10-4:00P, 261 Olson - CRN 47572
Sec. 02.  M 4:10-5:00P, 117 Olson - CRN 47573
Sec. 03.  R 3:10-4:00P, 205 Olson - CRN 47574
Sec. 04.  R 4:10-5:00P, 117 Olson - CRN 47575
Sec. 05.  F 10:00-10:50A, 207 Olson - CRN 47576
Sec. 06.  F 11:00-11:50A, 207 Olson - CRN 47577

Course Description: Traversing the globe, this course is a "genre" course that discusses the origin and development of the popular (or folk) genres of fables, fairy tales, and parables, and follows their development and evolution into their modern forms. The class surveys the social, political, anthropological, psychological, and literary elements of these genres in their various incarnations throughout time and space.

Classes will be conducted partly by lecture and partly by discussion. Students must attend discussion sections regularly and participate in discussions. Your grade will be divided according to the following percentages: 15% first exam, 20% first paper (which is a revision of the essay on the first exam), 30% second paper, 25% final, and 10% class participation. More than three absences in discussion will result in an automatic F for that portion of your grade. Comparative Literature 5 is an Introductory General Education course that satisfies World Cultures, Writing, and Arts & Humanities.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum, Div, and Wrt.
GE Credits (New): ArtHum, Wrt, and World Cultures.

Readings:

  • Haddawy, The Arabian Nights: Sinbad and Other Popular Stories (Norton)
  • G. Basile, Pentamerone
  • J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
  • L. Frank Baum, The Wizard of Oz (HarperCollins)
  • Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales of Geoffrey Chaucer (Bantam Classics)
  • Carlo Collodi, The Adventures of Pinocchio (New York Review of Books)
  • S. Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Penguin)
  • A Course Reader on SmartSite
     

COM 6. MYTHS AND LEGENDS (4 units)
Prof. William Scott McLean, wsmclean@ucdavis.edu

Lecture: TR 1:40-3:00P, 179 Chemistry

Discussion Sections:
Sec. 01.  T 4:10-5:00P, 261 Olson - CRN 73679
Sec. 02.  T 5:10-6:00P, 261 Olson - CRN 73680
Sec. 03.  W 4:10-5:00P, 151 Olson - CRN 73681
Sec. 04.  W 5:10-6:00P, 151 Olson - CRN 73682
Sec. 05.  R 8:00-8:50A, 209 Wellman - CRN 73683
Sec. 06.  R 9:00-9:50A, 209 Wellman - CRN 73684

Course Description: Introduction to the comparative study of myths and legends, excluding those of Greece and Rome, with readings from Near Eastern, Teutonic, Celtic, Indian, Japanese, Chinese, African and Central American literary sources.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum, Div, and Wrt.
GE Credits (New): ArtHum, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Readings:

  • Anonymous, The Epic of Gilgamesh, translated by Andrew George (Penguin Classics, 2003)
  • Ramayana, translated by William Buck (University of CA Press, 2012)
  • Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, translated by W.S. Merwin (Knopf, 2004)\
  • (Ed.) Richard Erdoes and Alfonso Ortiz, American Indian Myths and Legends (Pantheon, 1985)
  • Gary Snyder, Mountains and Rivers without End (Counterpoint, 2008)
  • Gary Snyder, He Who Hunted Birds in His Father’s Village: The Dimensions of a Haida Myth (Counterpoint, 2007)

COM 10I. MASTER AUTHORS: Identity and the Public Image (2 units)
Elisabeth Lore, emlore@ucdavis.edu

Lecture/Discussion Sections:
Sec. 01.  M 12:10-2:00P, 105 Wellman - CRN 73892
Sec. 02.  W 10:00-11:50, 105 Wellman - CRN 73894

Course Description: In this course, we will discuss the link between the self and the public image as represented in short stories, poetry and essays of the 19th century.  Using Claire de Duras’ Ourika, as our point of departure, we will explore discourses engaging such subjects as gender, race, culture, language, colonialism, and nationalism, considering in particular how these discourses work towards constructing or deconstructing an individual’s identity.  Our reading list includes such works as “Rappuccini’s Daughter” and “The Birthmark” by Nathaniel Hawthorne (U.S.), “The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol (Russia), “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant (France), “Our America” by Jose Martí (Cuba), poems by Edgar Allen Poe (U.S.), as well as several others.  This course does not fulfill the university writing requirement, as no essays will be assigned.  Grades are based on participation, quizzes, reading responses and a final exam.

Grading: PASS/NO PASS (P/NP) ONLY.

Readings:

  • Claire de Duras, Ourika (Modern Language Association of America, 1995)
  • Edgar Allen Poe, Great Tales and Poems of Edgar Allen Poe (Simon & Schuster, 2007)
  • Nikolai Gogal, The Overcoat and Other Short Stories (Dover, 1992)
  • Guy de Maupassant, Best Short Stories (CreateSpace, 2011)
  • Nathaniel Hawthorne, Hawthorne's Short Stories (Vintage, 2011)
  • Thomas C. Foster, How to Read Literature Like a Professor: A Lively and Entertaining Guide to Reading Between the Lines (Harper Perennial, 2003)
     

COM 53C. LITERATURES OF THE ISLAMIC WORLD (3 Units)
Prof. Noha Radwan, nmradwan@ucdavis.edu

Lecture: TR 10:30-11:50A, 1007 Giedt - CRN 73685

Course Description: This course is an introduction to the classics of poetry and prose composed in the Muslim world from the seventh to the 19th century. Students will read excerpts from works that originated in folk tales and others that were composed by the most highly acknowledged poets and sages of their times. They will learn about the context of the works’ composition and explore some of the reasons why they have been cherished not only by their readers in their native lands, but by readers worldwide. Readings include excerpts from early Arabic poetry, the Persian Book of Kings (The Shahnameh), Mystic (Sufi) poetry and the Arabian Nights. All readings will be available in a class reader. Students will be graded based on brief weekly book responses, a midterm, a final exam and active participation in class discussions. No previous knowledge of Islam or the Muslim world is required. 

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum and Wrt.
GE Credit (New): ArtHum, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Readings:

  • Farid ud-Din Attar, The Conference of the Birds, translated by Afkham Darbandi (Penguin Classics, 1984)
     

Upper Division Courses

COM 135. WOMEN WRITERS (4 Units)
Prof. Gail Finney, gefinney@ucdavis.edu

Lecture: MWF 11:00-11:50A, 1007 Giedt - CRN 73686

Course Description: The course will study prose fiction, poetry, and essays by well-known women writers from a spectrum of ethnicities, socioeconomic backgrounds, and eras, with contexts ranging from the seventeenth-century French court to twentieth-century Saigon. These readings will be illuminated through critical and theoretical writings by a number of prominent European feminist and psychoanalytic theorists.

We will pursue questions such as the following: can systematic differences be discerned between male and female writers (are certain themes especially prominent among women writers; is it possible to speak of a "feminine style"), and to what degree is it useful to pose this question, or to what extent do factors like race, class, education, and nationality complicate the role of gender in shaping women's writing; how do the images women create of themselves compare with longstanding cultural stereotypes of the feminine as generated by male artists; how do women writers transform (or not) stylistic modes made current by their male predecessors or contemporaries, e.g., the Gothic, realism, and the fantastic.

Prerequisite: None.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum, Div, and Wrt.
GE Credit (New): ArtHum, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Readings:

  • Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own (Mariner Books, 2005)
  • Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (W.W. Norton & Company, 2000)
  • Marguerite Duras, The Lover (Pantheon, 1998)
  • Madame de Lafayette, The Princess of Cleves, translated by Nancy Mitford (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1988)
  • Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God (Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006)
  • Jean Rhys, Wide Sargasso Sea (W.W. Norton & Company, 1998)
     

COM 141. INTRODUCTION TO COMPARATIVE CRITICAL THEORY (4 Units)
Prof. Neil Larsen, nalarsen@ucdavis.edu

Lecture: TR 12:10-1:30P, 1128 Bainer - CRN 73687

Course Description: This course introduces students to the basic concepts and methods of critical and literary theory. Drawing on Eagleton's Literary Theory: An Introduction, selections from primary works by theorists from Marx and Freud to Benjamin and Foucault, and taking up the contributions of areas such as feminist and film theory, the class will explore the theoretical ramifications of a small group of literary and cultural texts, including Shakespeare's King Lear; Hitchcock's classic film, Vertigo; and a contemporary work of fiction (to be announced) . Students will be asked to write a series of guided essays, culminating in a final project of theoretical analysis centered on pre-determined text.

Prerequisite: One upper division literature course or consent of instructor.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum and Wrt.
GE Credit (New): ArtHum, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Readings:

  • Texts will be provided digitally
     

COM 146. MYTH IN LITERATURE (4 Units)
Prof. William Scott McLean, wsmclean@ucdavis.edu

Lecture: TR 4:40-6:00P, 207 Olson - CRN 73688

Course Description: Comparative study of different versions of one or more central myths, with attention to their cultural settings, artistic and literary forms of representation, as well as to their psychological dimensions.

Prerequisite: COM 6 recommended.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum, Div, and Wrt.
GE Credit (New): ArtHum, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Readings:

  • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust I & II, translated by Stuart Atkins (Princeton University Press, 1994)
  • Friedrich Holderlin, Hyperion and Selected Poems (Continuum, 1990)
  • Gary Snyder, Myths and Texts (New Directions, 1978)
  • Homer, The Iliad, translated by Robert Fagles (Penguin Books, 1991)
  • Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays: Antigone, Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, translated by Robert Fagles (Penguin Classics, 1984)
  • Euripides, Euripides V: Electra, The Phoenician Women, The Bacchae, translated by Emily Townsend Vermeule, Elizabeth Wyckoff, and William Arrowsmith (University of Chicago Press, 1969)
     

COM 166A. THE EPIC (4 Units)
Prof. Jocelyn Sharlet, jcsharlet@ucdavis.edu

Lecture: MWF 1:10-2:00P, 101 Olson - CRN 47594

Course Description: Course Description: In this course we will explore representations of heroism, history, relationships between humans and the supernatural, conflicts between political and family obligations, the boundaries between communities, and the interplay of oral and written culture in the development of the epic. We will pay particular attention to the role of social order and disorder, and the journey and exile, in defining the interaction between the individual and the community in four epics: The Shahnameh (Book of Kings) by Ferdowsi, the Odyssey by Homer, The Adventures of Sayf ben Dhi Yazan, and The Song of the Cid.

Prerequisite: None.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum, Div, and Wrt.
GE Credit (New): ArtHum, World Cultures and Writing Experience.

Readings:

  • Homer, Odyssey, translated by Stanley Lombardo (Hackett Publishing Co., 2000)
  • The Adventures of Sayf Ben Dhi Yazan: An Arab Folk Epic, translated by Lena Jayyusi (Indiana University Press, 1996)
  • Anonymous, The Song of the Cid: A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text, translated by Burton Raffel (Penguin Classics, 2009)
  • Abolgasem Ferdowsi, The Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings, translated by Dick Davis (Penguin Classics 2007)
     

COM 167. COMPARATIVE STUDY OF MAJOR AUTHORS: "DANTE" (4 Units) 
Prof. Brenda Deen Schildgen, bdschildgen@ucdavis.edu

Lecture: TR 1:40-3:00P, 293 Kerr - CRN 47595

Course Description: Requirements: Attendance, participation, reading, two five-page papers, and a final exam. Possible topics for essays include Dante and the ancient world (poetry, philosophy, or politics); Dante and nature; Dante and interpretive strategies; Dante and the visual arts; reception of Dante (by poets, writers, artists, etc. in any period, any culture, any language); Dante outside the medieval context; Dante’s imagery; and whatever else you can imagine.

Grades based on papers (25% first paper; 30% second paper), participation 10% and 35% for the final.

WEB SITE: http://www.dantesociety.org. See links to Danteworlds, The World of Dante, and Dante Today.

Prerequisite: Consent of instructor.

GE Credits (Old): ArtHum and Wrt.
GE Credit (New): ArtHum, Wrt, and World Cultures.

Readings:

  • Dante, Inferno, translated by Anthony Esolen (Modern Library, 2005)
  • Dante, Purgatory, translated by Anthony Esolen (Modern Library, 2004)
  • Dante, Paradise, translated by Anthony Esolen (Modern Library, 2007)

[RECOMMENDED]

  • Rachel Jacoff (ed.), Cambridge Companion to Dante (Cambridge University Press, 1993)
     

Graduate Courses

COM 210. TOPIC: "TEACHING LITERATURE AND FILM FROM THE MIDDLE EAST" (4 Units)
Prof. Noha Radwan, nmradwan@ucdavis.edu

Lecture: T 3:10-6:00P, 263 Olson - CRN 47631

Course Description: In this class, students will read 20th century works of fiction and poetry and watch films from various countries in the Middle East, In addition to analyzing and interpreting these literary and cinematic works, students will also learn how to incorporate them into comparative literature and cultural studies courses and into courses on the history, culture, social and political developments in the modern Middle East. Course readings will also include works of cultural theory and criticism by Edward Said, Talal Asad, Fredrick Jameson, David Damrosch and others.

Readings:

  • Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular: Christianity, Islam, Modernity (Stanford University Press, 2003)
  • Talal Asad, Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and Islam (Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993)
  • S. Yizhar, Khirbit Khizeh, translated by Nicholas de Lange and Yaacob Dweck (Ibis Editions, 2008)
  • Sahar Khalifeh, Wild Thorns, translated by Elizabeth Warnock Fernea and Trevor Legassick (Interlink Publishing Group, 1999)
     

COM 396. TEACHING ASSISTANT TRAINING PRACTICUM (Variable Units)

William Scott McLean (CRN ***)
Kari Lokke (CRN ***)
Noha Radwan (CRN ***)

(Note: Contact Falicia Savala, fsavala@ucdavis.edu, for the CRNs.)